


Auricle

by laEsmeralda



Series: Walking the Walk [5]
Category: White Collar
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-10 09:20:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laEsmeralda/pseuds/laEsmeralda





	Auricle

Neal’s ears have become a strange fascination. Neither tiny nor large nor otherwise remarkable, they draw Peter’s eyes of late. _Perfect_ , is what he thinks when he sees them, tips covered by a hat or not, hair feathering over them or smoothed behind. The word drifts through him right before seeing them makes him hard.

Peter has never been a body part objectifier. His porn collection, while adequately detailed, does not headline like a chop-shop. He needs a concept of the whole being in order to get off. Once he has that, of course, he can linger for a time on single attributes. With El, he’s had lips-focused, ass-obsessed, nipple-centric phases, but never to the exclusion of the rest of her, and they only last a day or two. 

This is week three. It’s inconvenient, because unlike other parts of Neal that are a schedule-and-privacy rationed treat, he sees them every day for hours. Most of the time at the office, he can consciously ignore Neal’s ears, and discipline is a good thing, because he isn’t sure what the consequences are for a guy well over forty getting turned on this often. Since he refuses to risk being heard in the men’s room, or beat off in the car, he’s beginning to feel rather put out. 

Other parts of Neal seem truly obsession worthy, but he hasn’t gotten stuck this way with anything else. Last night, if he hadn’t awakened at the last minute, he would have had a wet dream about just touching Neal’s earlobes.

Today, over lunch, he keeps returning to the scene of the almost-crime, and as a result, his dick is so hard he can’t get up for a coffee refill. 

Neal must notice the extra attention, because at one point in the discussion, he reflexively touches the left one, as if to brush off something Peter sees there and isn’t bothering to tell him about. As the treasured fingers trace the outer curve, Peter almost groans. The look on Neal’s face shifts as he catches onto Peter’s underlying mood. “Oh,” he says. 

Peter rests his chin on a fist. “I don’t understand it myself,” he replies. But now he can look all he wants. Each one is different, but the same in the softness of the lobes, the arch looping up from there, the effect that touching either of them has on Neal. Lips welcome, tongue only on the outer edge, never inside, too ticklish. Maybe that’s it. 

Or maybe it’s that every once in a while, under the guise of case confidentiality, he uses the closest whisper he dares in front of everyone to tell Neal what he’d rather be doing, senses a shiver go through Neal that he hides from everyone else. They can’t talk on the phone or in the car with any candor. Touches can’t linger. Glances can’t turn brazen. This whisper, when he can’t stand not saying anything for days on end, is the only outlet. 

He wants to reach out, right now, and run his thumb along that curve, feel Neal lean against his hand. There are so very many reasons he cannot do that in public, such a simple thing, not rude or socially inappropriate. It’s something a boyfriend could share with a girlfriend in a crowded diner, a loving, intimate acknowledgment. His hand twitches. 

“Come over tonight,” Neal says with a gentle smile. “We’re overdue.”  
*******


End file.
